LATEST NEWS FROM THE COSMOS A film by Julie Bertucelli

An Icarus Films Release

Best Documentary Nominee, 2017 César Awards

Icarus Films │ (718) 488-8900 │ 32 Court St. 21, Brooklyn, NY 11201 │ mail@IcarusFilms.com

LOGLINE

At the age of twenty, an autistic woman begins writing words, then phrases, and finally books,

arranging one letter at a time.

SYNOPSIS

For most of her life, Hélène, who lives with her parents in rural France, did not

communicate. And then, at the age of 21-despite having had no formal schooling or

ever having been taught to read or write-she did. By arranging laminated alphabet

letters, Hélène created words, then phrases and finally a book, one letter at a time.

And then another book. Under the pen-name Babouillec Sp (the letters stand for sans

parole or "non-verbal"), this severely autistic woman writes poetry that can be soaring

and childlike, surreal and funny, dense with allusions and filled with insight. Hélène's

most recent volume is Eponymous Algorithm, which her parents helped to adapt for the

stage. Latest News from the Cosmos draws us into Hélène's world as the play is

developed. In a film unlike any other portrait of a writer, director Julie Bertuccelli (School

of Babel) prompts us to contemplate the nature of creativity and communication, and

the hidden potential in humans of all abilities.

IN THE PRESS

"Nearly 30 years old, an autistic woman can barely utter a few words. We assume she's

behind but discover she's way ahead. When Hélène Nicolas takes hold of the letters

placed on a table, she becomes a poet who, under the pseudonym Babouillec,

delivers astonishing thoughts and visions."

—Telerama

"Placed before this explosive personality, in constant conflict with a very strong

interiority that Hélène cannot express in speech, the viewer simultaneously becomes a

voyeur and witness to a continuous miracle. Unsettling and captivating."

—Premiere

"Having never learned to read, at age 20 Hélène began to compose striking and

inspired texts, which describe her vision of the world and society. The film

empathetically questions the mysteries of art and intuition."

—L'Humanité

"An absorbing portrait of human creativity. Inspirational and informative... If ever there

was a movie warning us not to judge a book by its cover, this is the one."

—The Hollywood Reporter

Review: “Latest News from the Cosmos”

The Hollywood Reporter

11/9/2016 by Jordan Mintzer

The Bottom Line: An absorbing portrait of human creativity.

Director Julie Bertuccelli (The Tree, School of Babel) chronicles a highly autistic French

woman who can compose short texts filled with poetry and wit.

Can a person incapable of speaking or writing somehow produce beautiful literature?

In Latest News from the Cosmos, director Julie Bertuccelli answers that question in the

affirmative, documenting the remarkable story of Helene Nicolas, aka Babouillec, a

severely autistic 30-year-old French woman who manages to convey her deepest inner

thoughts through a unique form of poetic wordplay. Both inspirational and informative,

this touching creative portrait received a small theatrical release in France and should

find additional bookings on the fest circuit, with possibilities for screenings at

educational and institutional outfits.

Born in 1985, Helene lives in a quiet country homestead surrounded by rivers, trees and

horses grazing in the fields. Unable to say anything but a few basic words, she seems on

appearance to be young tween stuck in the body of someone much more mature,

and is obviously in need of constant care. But around 10 years ago, Helene’s mother,

Veronique, discovered that her daughter was in fact capable of learning how to read,

and subsequently taught her how to spell out words using laminated plastic letters, in a

sort of ongoing game of Scrabble through which Helene was soon able to

communicate her desires, dreams and astute daily observations.

The result, collected in several books, the last of which was titled Eponymous Algorithm,

reveals a highly intelligent mind capable of reducing complex ideas to cleverly

executed phrases that read like philosophical haikus or prose-poetry aphorisms. (“We

survive by instinct to survive. Only love separates us from nothingness.” “The taste for

adventure mysteriously censors itself.”) Some sentences come across as joyfully

mystical, as if Helene were privy to secrets of the world we can barely grasp. (“In fact

I’m telepathic and iconoclastic, ideally you will know the founding principles

enumerating the back-and-forth of cosmic energy.”)

Bertuccelli has directed a handful of features and documentaries — her last film, School

of Babel, focused on an immigrant youth class in Paris — and in Cosmos she skillfully cuts

between scenes of Helene “writing,” which can recall the automatic writing sessions of

the Surrealists, and a series of performances where her texts are adapted into theater

pieces that she often takes part in. (The film’s opening slyly brings these storylines

together when we see Helene unable to sit still during a literary reading, only to realize

that the reader is actually reciting one of her texts.)

Filming in close-up or even extreme close-up, as if trying to better penetrate the mystery

residing behind Helene’s bewildering facial expressions, Bertuccelli (who operated

camera and sound herself) underlines the enormous chasm separating her subject’s

outward appearance from the insightful artistic mind that is reflected in her writing,

leaving us to contemplate the difference between words, deeds and images. If ever

there was a movie warning us not to judge a book by its cover, this is the one.

FILM FESTIVALS

Best Documentary Nominee, 2017 César Awards

Audience Award, 2016 Montreal Documentary Film Festival (RIDM)

2017 Tournées Film Festival

2016 La Rochelle International Film Festival

2016 Auch Festival Indépendances et Créations

2016 Gardanne Festival of Autumn

2016 Lussas Documentary Festival

DIRECTOR’S NOTE

I first met Hélène and her mother Véronique three years ago, after a Pierre Meunier

show they’d just seen. Hélène was having a discussion with Pierre, aided by her little

laminated letters, and he asked her to work on Algorithme Eponyme, her latest text…I

was dumbfounded discovering her there (not to mention imagining their upcoming

work to stage this incredible text,) and I suddenly had the intense desire to make a film

about her.

I’m still stunned to have been able to come across Babouillec and her world on my

own little path in life. She does not speak, but she hears and perceives everything with

an intensity that staggers those who meet her or read her work. She has not a trace of

pity about her, but instead a razor-sharp sense of humor. The strength, intelligence,

poetry and mystery of her texts continue to enthrall me. Her responses when I began

filming her, her gaze which pierces through your soul, her infectious laughs, her intuition,

and her sensitivity challenge our certainties and bring us towards a greater humanity.

Hélène questions us about the power of the mind and the limits of social beings. She

speaks to us about exchanges between her internal world, which is vast and free, and

our world, which is too concerned with putting everything into boxes.

I know that she still has much to offer us. Spending time with her, talking with her,

reading her work, watching her understand the world in her own very personal way,

but still enjoy life and its perceptions, was a privileged and deeply moving experience

for me.

—Julie Bertuccelli

A NOTE FROM BABOUILLEC SP

WRITTEN DURING FILMING

WHAT A DAZZLING ADVENTURE

THE UTOPIAN BET OF BELONGING

TO A LIVING SYSTEM.

THE WORN-OUT FILM OF OUR SOCIAL SCENARIOS

FILLS MYSTERIOUS DESIRES.

THE MOCKING EYE OF YOUR CAMERA

FILMS RIGHT DOWN TO THE TOP OF OUR BEINGS.

I LOVE IT.

—Babouillec Sp

A NOTE FROM BABOUILLEC SP

AFTER VIEWING THE FILM

WITH DISTANCE MY EYE FOUND ITS CRITICAL MEANING AGAIN.

THE BEAUTY THE IMAGE PROVIDES OFFERS US

THE POSSIBILITY OF QUESTIONING EMOTION.

LAUGHING OR CRYING IN THE FACE OF THIS WORLD FROM ELSEWHERE.

TRUE SUBJECT OF SOCIETY, TALKING ABOUT AUTISM CAN BE DISTURBING.

THROUGH YOUR FILM, JULIE, I CAME ACROSS AS A PERSON

OFF THE CIRCUIT WHO, WITH HER BOX OF LETTERS, COMPOSES

A LANGUAGE THAT BELONGS TO SOMETHING ELSE

AND THE WORLDS ARE JOINED.

I OBSERVE MYSELF WITH PLEASURE THROUGH YOUR SLY EYE

INHABITED BY LOVE OF DIRECT, FLUID LIGHT

EMBELLISHING THE POETIC CONTOURS OF WHAT’S REAL.

ABRACADABRA AND SAPERLIPOPETTE, I ADORE THIS MAGIC

MOMENT OF ETERNITY IN WHICH THE GAZE,

EMOTION, THE WHOLE BODY ARE IMMOBILIZED.

I BELIEVE THAT THIS STRANGE ALCHEMY OF THE INSTANT

FOR ETERNITY TEACHES ME TO HAVE TRUST IN

THE EXISTENCE OF BEING SOMEONE SOMEWHERE

IN A SHARED SPACE.

SO THANK YOU JULIE FOR HAVING EMBARKED WITH ME

IN THIS OTHER WORLD THAT YOU CALL

“NEWS FROM THE COSMOS”.

WITH ALL MY LIVING LOVE [TVA – TOUT VIVRE AMOUR)

—Babouillec Sp

BABOUILLEC SP’S PHRASES FROM THE FILM

A neither whole nor standardized machine

Will not liBerate our reBellious verticality

Flashy oddball my life on the Blink

my words are free to exist

Are only improvised in the devil’s rhythm

From the iNcaNDesceNt back and forth Of my laNterN

The slY eye of the camera smiles at me,

mY love of the fantastic aDore

BaBouillec orator withOut boRder

ForBidDen A passport

Playing with eacH Of the secret spaces

of mY niTwiT mind

iN fact I’m telepathic and icoNoclastic

iDeally you’D know the fouNdatioNs

eNumeraTing the back and foRth of cosmic eNergy

iN a book telLing stories

the cosmos Nourishes my travels

EXTRACTS FROM THE TEXT

ALGORITHME EPONYME

TAKEN FROM THE SHOW

FORBIDDEN DI SPORGERSI

AND US THE DOERS OF THE WORLD IN THIS ARBITRARY MAZE,

ARE WE FREE, AMICABLY CONNECTED, IGNORANT

OF OTHERS OR ON LINE WAITING

WITH DISCONNECTED MINDS?

WE SURVIVE BY SURVIVAL INSTINCT

ONLY THE ACT OF LOVING SEPARATES US FROM THE VOID.

HALT THE RISE OF POWER OF SLEEPING HEADS.

TO WHOM SHOULD WE BELONG, RESEMBLE?

THE MODEL USED ENTERS THROUGH WHAT FORM OF THOUGHT?

ARE WE DEPENDENT ON THE LAW OF LIMITS?

MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE, DINOSAURS TOO,

HOMOSAPIENS BLAZE THE TRAIL LITERALLY SUBJECT

TO THE ETERNAL QUESTION: WHO AM I?

TO BE OR NOT TO BE, THAT IS THE QUESTION.

SAYING SHIT TO THOSE WHO WANT TO KNOW

THAT’S THE ANSWER

MYSTERIOUSLY THE DESIRES FOR ADVENTURES ARE SELF-CENSORED

BABOUILLEC SP ON HERSELF

EXCERPTED FROM HER WRITINGS

I WAS BORN ON A SNOWY DAY,

TO A MOTHER WHO GIGGLES, ALL THE TIME

I SAID TO MYSELF, IT’S FREEZING,

BUT LIFE SEEMS COOL.

AND HARD TIMES ENSUED.

I FAILED NURSERY SCHOOL AND ALL MY CHANCES

OF BEING A CHAMPION AT SCHOOL DESKS.

NO LEARNING, JUST BEING YOURSELF

A TERROR FOR SOCIAL GRACES…

IS THINKING IN SILENCE A REASONABLE ACT?

I SPENT LONG YEARS

CUT OFF FROM THE WORLD OF SPEECH.

IT WAS IMPOSSIBLE FOR ME TO ENGAGE IN

THE ESTABLISHED CODES. MUTISM TOOK HOLD OF MY BODY,

MY MENTAL INTELLIGENCE IS ENCLOSED

IN THIS SILENT BODY.

I ADORE WORDS, THE POTENTIAL EXTENSION

OF THOUGHT WITHOUT LIMITS.

SO I WROTE; AN ACT OF BELIEVING.

GIVING TO YOUR REASONS A MEANING TO MY SILENCE.

EACH OF MY MENTAL IMAGES INVITES ME TO VISIT

THE ORDER OF THOUGHT MATERIALIZING OUR WORLD OF

ESTABLISHED KNOWLEDGE. WHAT AN UNCERTAIN, EXALTING, PUZZLING

ADVENTURE.

AN INTERVIEW WITH JULIE BERTUCCELLI

By Estelle Gapp

As the director of some fifteen documentaries, you are particularly sensitive to life’s

trajectories. How did you meet this young autistic author, Hélène Nicolas (pseudonym

Babouillec,) whose portrait you have now created?

My films are always the result of great meetings, such as the one with young magistrates

in La Fabrique des juges in 1997, or the one with adolescents of all kinds of nationalities

in School of Babel [La Cour de Babel] in 2014. From film to film I’m often drawn to the

same themes; the same questions arise again, notably concerning life’s difference and

difficulties, which make us stronger and shape us. I was not looking to make a film

about the handicap of autism. Yet the difficulty of communicating is a topic that has

interested me for a long time. I met Hélène thanks to director Pierre Meunier, who was

working on a play about the construction of speech. Pierre had heard about an autistic

person who did not speak, but who wrote. When he read her texts, he was blown away.

I met Hélène and her mother Véronique at a performance of that show, Du fond des

gorges. I was captivated by the young woman, by her mystery, her unique way of

communicating, by the extraordinary dichotomy between her body, which is what we

first notice about her, and all of the passion and brilliance she holds, which is so

disturbing to our little human sensibilities. I immediately wanted to film her; she was like

proof.

You say that shoots are like moments in life. How do you experience the long-term

commitment that a documentary demands? Does your personal experience provide

this sensitivity to the film?

I filmed Hélène over a two-year period, choosing to be the only one behind the

camera, with no technical assistance from a cameraman or sound engineer. Intuitively,

I wanted to establish a direct relationship, a strong intimacy with Hélène. The first shot of

the film is the first shot I took of her. I didn’t want to do a portrait of the daily life of an

autistic person, but of an artist, a poet with blinding talent, who relates her vision of the

world and her very unique, very deep vision of our human relationships. These two years

of shared emotion and discovery have been a constant source of wonderment. Hélène

doesn’t speak, but so many things are conveyed through laughter, looks, silences,

gestures, in addition to her writing. It was very moving and powerful to experience all of

that, and at the same time I asked myself many questions. How can you successfully

render the strength of her writing onscreen? How do you find the right way to create a

vision of the existential enigma that embodies Hélène?

The portrait exercise raises numerous technical and ethical issues. How does the

camera find its proper place? How do you approach intimacy without voyeurism? Is

the issue of modesty important to you?

In documentaries, it is always a bit tricky to film people in their private space, because

nothing is objective; they need to accept the image that will be taken of them.

Incidentally, I often film people in their professional environment, that is, in a place

where they are part of a social representation, so as to not be too intrusive. I chose to

approach Hélène through her written work. Of course I filmed her in her daily life, but

without trying to steal away a private moment. It was a matter of mutually accepting

one another, step by step, of trying to establish contact with her, of building a

relationship of trust, and ultimately becoming complicit. “Starting from nothing to come

together,” as she magnificently puts it. I had to find my place as director, even though

Hélène had agreed to be filmed. She was very conscious of the presence of the

camera, which was an invaluable filter between us. She felt drawn in and amused by

the camera, and immediately won it over. She looked at it with her impish look, and

called herself “filmo-magnetic”.

Unlike a fictional storyline, a documentary is constructed gradually through filming. How

did you work on the text of the film, its dramaturgy, its pacing?

While the events are not always foreseeable, I work off of an outline. I had a list of

sequences I hoped to find, and many ideas on how to evoke the different facets of

Hélène’s personality. Then it was in filming that the film ended up being written, all the

way to the long, crucial and fascinating task of editing. The creation of Pierre Meunier

and Marguerite Bordat’s play Forbidden di Sporgersi was clearly a rich canvas in terms

of stages and events. But I also imagined other moments with Hélène alone, and with

her mother. For example, I really wanted to see her in nature, horseback riding. In the

end I thought it was one of the most poetic sequences of the film. Hélène does

numerous activities: over the period I filmed her, she participated in a writing workshop

with struggling youth, she wrote a libretto for an opera, organized meetings with other

young autistic people…there were numerous temptations for filming, but I tried to stick

to my initial principle in order to not spread myself too thin. From the narrative, which

consisted of following Hélène along her artistic path creating the play, a general

framework emerged, like the general search for a movement, and I knew that the

culmination of the film had to be at the Festival of Avignon, at the first performances. I

did not want to miss Hélène’s reactions to the show or her presence onstage amidst the

audience’s enthusiastic applause. It was like an escape route for the film, a guideline

but also an openness to everything that could happen.

Like Hélène, you introduce yourself, behind the camera, as a “voiceless” person. How

do you tell the story of a person who cannot tell it herself? Does the visual allow her to

invent another language?

While she does not speak, Hélène tells her story through writing. Thanks to her mother

Véronique, and her long and hard work, you could say that writing has been like a

second birth for Hélène. Very quickly, I asked myself how to read, how to play with

Hélène’s writing. In the beginning, I recopied her sentences, wanting to retain them, to

savor them. How do you transmit her dazzlingly intelligent texts, their firepower? The

sense of time in cinema is not the same as in reading. I tried to figure out how to give

the viewer the chance to become steeped in these aphorisms. Hence the idea of

showing some of her texts onscreen. They are made of laminated cardboard letters

which Hélène manipulates using an alphabet book, arranged in a precious wood box

which she brings everywhere with her. It was a matter of putting the writing into images,

of opening up the imagination, inviting people to move towards Hélène. I wanted to

avoid interviews with specialists, and instead favor situations, capture relationships

through looks, crises too, all those other moments of life that do not lie only in the

efficacy of a response. Without having the pretension of being in her head, I hoped to

evoke Hélène’s inner world, to approach and make viewers curious and sensitive to

what she was living, to absorb and capture the sensations she could experience. To

make them feel how she is in a state of perpetual questioning, of intense reflection

about the world. For me, the outside scenes in the forest or seaside have this density,

this unique depth of field, like mental images that would be reflected within Hélène’s

mind. I did not intend to make a poetic film with formal effects; I merely wanted to

open a door into her world, into her ever-brimming personality.

You could say that Forbidden di Sporgersi explores the mystery of Hélène’s writing, while

my film explores the mystery she herself embodies as a person and an artist. My only

ambition was to be an intermediary between Hélène and the audience, to rouse their

curiosity, their senses, to pave the way to getting to know an out of the ordinary artist.

We perceive Hélène as having a sparkling, audacious personality. Her life is a conquest

every moment, a struggle to go out and meet the world. Beyond a portrait, can we say

that your film is a life lesson, a quest for freedom?

Hélène is evidence of freethinking of exceptional power, beyond our limits, our social

barriers. She constantly moves the borders between her body, others’ bodies and the

outside world. Like Pierre Meunier and all those who meet her, I was deeply moved by

her out of the ordinary personality. Highly intelligent, intensely perceptive and with a

strong presence in the world, she has been able to overcome her own difficulties with

an enormous amount of humor. What particularly touched me was the path mother

and daughter had taken to get to know one another. Then yes, that path is a major life

lesson. We feel a lot of happiness, a true self-realization for Hélène and also a great

blossoming and self-growth for Véronique. Hélène’s exemplary path towards writing, her

tenacity to acquire the freedom to express herself, calls us to question our relationship

to difference, our way of judging others. In France, we are way behind in our

knowledge and aid of autistics. Autism is not a handicap, but another way of being in

the world, a special and unique human intelligence and perception which can enrich

us and shake us up, qualities which are so invaluable for meeting and sharing. We filter

what we experience quite a bit, while Hélène nourishes herself with all of her senses; she

is conscious of all levels of existence. This extraordinary power to be open to things is

found in what she creates. Hélène is a concentrated form of life, and she brings us

further, with poetry and philosophy. With her, the answer is always stronger than the

question…

You admirably film Hélène’s silences. Sometimes she looks like she could be a

Madonna, listening to the world. Have you felt a spiritual dimension in Hélène?

As she herself says, Hélène has a spiritual relationship with things; her gift is almost like

that of a medium. She says she experiences an interplanetary travel, a “back-and-forth

with the cosmos.” Her relationships with nature, space and time are always symbolic,

metaphoric. She immediately makes us reach for the sky. She shakes up our relationship

to the body, spirit, to History, to humanity. She shakes up our usual ways of thinking,

which are caught up in too rational dichotomies: space and time, interior and exterior,

subject and object. At the end of the film, I attended Hélène’s meeting with Laurent

Derobert, an “existential mathematician”. It was an intense moment, where I came to

the understanding that autism is not synonymous with imprisonment, but rather is a

deep connection with the mystery of the world. At that point in the film there is a true

reversal of values: we see that it’s not Hélène who is “different,” but we who are not

open and sensitive enough to grasp the keys she offers us to understanding the world.

Hélène’s meeting reminded me of my meeting with aborigines in Australia some years

ago, during the shooting of my film L’Arbre (The Tree). I had discovered the profound

meaning of animism, that global relationship with the world. Hélène has the same

primordial relationship with the universe. Hélène is not a “prisoner” of her body; she is

the one who make us become conscious of our own “imprisonments”.

Beyond the portrait, my greatest wish would be for the film to pose the philosophical

question of our place in the universe. I think of Pascal: “Man is locked between two

abysses, the infinitesimally small and the infinitely big.” Hélène questions us about the

universe that is inside of us, about the metaphysical relationship that exists between the

microcosm in us and the macrocosm that is space. “I keep watch over the stars that

shine in my head,” she writes in Algorithme éponyme. Hélène constantly has her head

in the stars. There is something deeply joyous in her; she is free to pursue her daydreams,

head in the clouds, like a child.

In your film, you create a subtle balance between images and words. Would you say

that your work as a filmmaker is akin to that of a tightrope walker?

I think back to the first shot in the film, where we see Hélène trip on a path. She is like a

tightrope walker, advancing step by step, always in balance with the string of her

emotions, thus inviting us to discover and take her path. This first shot should be placed

alongside the last image in the film, where we see Hélène run in a hallway of La

Chartreuse in Villeneuve-lez-Avignon, a clear-cut escape, a surge towards her future! I

am always bombarded with doubts and am forced to rely on my instinct. I don’t always

know where I’m going. Yet at the same time, I always want to be surprised by what I’m

going to look for, always want to move towards something, to discover the end of the

thread. Moreover, a FILM [FILM] is itself a THREAD[FIL], just minus a letter! As we know,

cinema has also always been linked to the image of a train. As Truffaut used to say:

“Films move forward like trains in the night”. As for a movie theater, it’s like a tunnel,

where we promise ourselves we’ll reach the end of the adventure. My only wish for

Latest News from the Cosmos would be that the audience leaves the theater, that is

this tunnel, with more questions than answers. For Hélène too, the train is a metaphor

that is very present throughout the pages of Algorithme éponyme.

ABOUT JULIE BERTUCELLI

Born in 1968, director Julie Bertuccelli studied

philosophy and then worked for ten years as

a director’s assistant on numerous feature

films, TV films and shorts, with Otar Iosseliani,

Rithy Panh, Krysztof Kieslowski, Emmanuel

Finkiel, Bertrand Tavernier, Jean-Louis

Bertuccelli, Christian de Chalonge, René

Féret, Pierre Etaix and more.

Following her introduction to documentary

filmmaking in 1993 at the Ateliers Varan, she

made ten documentaries for Arte, France 3

and France 5, including Un métier comme

un autre, Une liberté!, La Fabrique des juges,

Bienvenue au grand magasin, Un monde en

fusion, Otar Iosseliani le merle siffleur, Le

Mystère Glasberg and Antoinette Fouque –

qu’est-ce qu’une femme?...

Her first fictional feature film, Depuis qu’Otar est parti (Since Otar Left)…received some

twenty prizes in France and abroad, including the Grand Prix de la Semaine de la

Critique at the 2003 Cannes Festival, the César for best first work in 2004, the 2003 Prix

Marguerite Duras and the 2003 Prix Michel d’Ornano in Deauville.

L’arbre, her second fictional feature film, shot in Australia, was an official selection in the

2010 Cannes Festival.

Her documentary School of Babel (La cour de Babel) which came to French theaters in

2014, received a César nomination and was crowned Best documentary from Trophées

francophones du cinéma.

She was president of SCAM, Société civile des auteurs multimédia, between June 2013

and June 2015, the first woman to hold that position. She has been co-president of the

ARP, Société civile des Auteurs-Réalisateurs-Producteurs since June 2016.

Julie Bertuccelli is currently working on her third fictional feature film, Le dernier vide-

grenier de Claire Darling.

ABOUT HÉLÈNE NICOLAS, BABOUILLEC SP

Hélène Nicolas, who has chosen the pseudonym “Babouillec Sp” (Sp standing for sans

parole, or wordless), was born in 1985. Diagnosed with very severe autism, Hélène

entered a medical-social institution around age 8, which she then left at age 14, in

1999. As of that date, she followed a sensorial stimulation program at her family home,

along with artistic and movement activities, daily work that was shared between

Hélène and her mother, Véronique Truffert, who stopped her career as a horsewoman

to do so.

Hélène does not have access to speech and her motor ability is insufficient to write. She

is thus enclosed in silence. In 2006, after six years of research on the place of thought in

the existence of being, Babouillec Sp is opening up her universe to us. With the help of

an alphabet in laminated cardboard letters, she writes words, sentences; she

communicates at last.

In 2009 she wrote, with her little letters, Raison et acte dans la douleur du silence. In

2010, she started a creative literary work with Arnaud Stéphan for the stage and

theater. At the same time, starting in 2008, Hélène also practiced various activities

including horseback riding, fine arts, dance and music at Espace Kiêthon, an

association which specializes in working with autistic people. She is new pursuing her

path in writing, composing atypical pieces for the theater and more unclassifiable

works.

FILM CREDITS

Direction, Image and Sound Julie Bertuccelli

Featuring Hélène Nicholas

Language In French with English subtitles

Original title Derniere nouvelles du cosmos

Country of production France

Year of production 2016

Year of release 2017

Aspect ratio 1.85

Sound 5.1

Running time 85 minutes

Editing Josiane Zardoya

Sound Editing Olivier Goinard

Olivier Guillaume

Sound mixing Olivier Goinard

Calibration Isabelle Laclau

Production Les Films du Poisson,

Yaël Fogiel and Laetitia Gonzalez

Coproduction Uccelli Production and Arte France Cinéma

With the participation of the Centre national du

cinema et de l’image animée

International sales Pyramide Distribution

An Icarus Films Release

The director’s note, writings by Babouillec Sp, and director interview in this press kit were

all translated from the original French by Liza Tripp for Icarus Films.

Movie Trailer:

https://vimeo.com/195022566

Downloadable Publicity Images:

http://icarusfilms.com/pressroom.html

User: icarus Password: press

More information about Latest News from the Cosmos:

http://www.dernieresnouvellesducosmos.com

http://www.icarusfilms.com/new2017/cosmo.html

Icarus Films

32 Court Street, Floor 21

Brooklyn, NY 11201

(718) 488-8900

mail@IcarusFilms.com

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